August 11, 2014
by Sean Dempsey
When I was a child
There stood a house by a lake
In a bed of woods it did lay.
We would yearly devote–
To find hearth reached by boat–
On a trip that took nearly a day.
When I was a child,
My two brothers and I,
And little sister, merely three years,
We would play high in a tree
In a house built for me
By our father with a dark bristly beard.
When I was a child
High in that tree far away
I was Rufio with his host of lost boys.
My sister was Tink,
All dolled up in pink,
And Hook schemed to loot and destroy.
When I was a child
Neverland was my home;
My childhood played out in that tree.
Loosely nailed boards
Held boys playing with swords
Where life was brazen and free.
When I was a child
Far away in the woods
I climbed the tree ladder so high;
There was a mermaid to kiss,
And no homework to miss
While happy memories taught Peter to fly.
The years ticked on by,
And to the woods I’d return
But, peeping up, before the base of the tree:
Neverland, it seemed,
More and more like a dream–
And the boy no longer in me.
When no longer a child,
I returned to that lake–
My father’s bristly beard now fully white–
I looked up at the Pine
Holding memories all mine
And beheld my treehouse’s plight:
Rotted were boards
That held the supports
And the tree itself all but had died;
Hook, it did seem–
That scoundrel and fiend–
Was attempting to leave us deprived.
On my 30th year
I returned to the lake
To find my treehouse no longer did stand
Smashed to the ground,
Only pieces were found,
Of the once beloved Neverland.
My childhood fell
But I shed not a tear—
I’d find treehouses in my future to build!
And then Neverland would,
For Neverland should,
In every child’s mind be filled
I later heard on the news
A funnyman died…
But I knew him as Peter Pan.
Seems his treehouse collapsed
And laughter was sapped
The day the child turned man.
